Lavoisier in the year one : the birth of a new science in an age of revolution

by: Bell, Madison Smartt

Publication date: 2005

Topics: Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 1743-1794, Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, Chemists, Chemistry, Chemical processes, French Revolution, History, 18th Century, Chemie, Alchemie, Chemistry, French Revolution, History, 18th Century, Chemical processes, Chemistry, Chemists, Chemie, Alchemie

Publisher: New York : W.W. Norton

Collection: inlibrary; printdisabled; internetarchivebooks; china

Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive

Contributor: Internet Archive

Language: English

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-198) and index

Ancien régime -- Out of alchemy -- Le principe oxygine -- The chemical revolution -- The end of the year one

Antoine Lavoisier--who lived at the zenith of the Enlightenment and died at the hands of the French Revolution--was himself a revolutionary. Closely followed by the burgeoning international scientific community, he competed with the best minds of his time to be the first to explain how chemical processes really work. Aided by a large fortune and his accomplished wife, he employed the most ingenious and expensive technology of his time in a series of innovative experiments that forever buried medieval alchemy and established a chemical language still in use today. Yet his personal triumph was short-lived, and the glory his achievement brought France could not protect him from the ravages of the Terror.--From publisher description